With the release of their new album on February 3rd, the Winery Dogs now have their third consecutive album worthy of being named Album Of The Year. With III, they have again hit highs in terms of lyrics, melodies, hard rock beats, and fusion/funk rhythms. It’s like having everything you want in one big savory bite. And it comes so naturally, with the talents of singer-guitarist Richie Kotzen, drummer Mike Portnoy, and bass player Billy Sheehan. Literally, how could a project composed of these guys not fail to stimulate musically – and they’ve felt it from the beginning.
“We got together that first initial time and there felt like there was some chemistry there with the three of us,” Kotzen told me during a 2013 interview for Glide. “It’s really a true band effort in the sense of the old school rock bands like Cream or any of those top power trios from that era.” Although there has been a little gap, about seven years, since their last studio album, III proves that the creative juices are still flowing. “Xanadu” was the first single to hit the airwaves in December with “Mad World” following in January. With other songs like “Rise,” “Lorelei,” “The Vengeance” and “Gaslight” all humming with those Winery Dogs chemical reactions, the album is on a comet’s trajectory to #1.
For Billy Sheehan, he’s ready for another go-round with his bandmates Kotzen and Portnoy. After a short tour in 2019, “Getting back together like that was really refreshing,” stated Sheehan. “We could relax a bit and enjoy being together onstage, playing without any pressure. It was a beautiful thing.” Reiterated Portnoy: “That was a fun little tour that reignited our enthusiasm — and that’s also when we knew a third album was definitely in the cards.”
Known for his specialty groove lines in Talas, Niacin, Mr. Big and David Lee’s Roth solo band, it took Sheehan a few minutes to make friends with the instrument in the beginning. “I picked up a bass at my buddy Joe’s house,” Sheehan remembered in our 2015 interview, “and I started plucking with my little index finger and instantly I got a blister on the end. So I picked up the bass and it bit back right away (laughs). So I knew we were destined for great things together.”
His career has bloomed since then, his reputation for nailing intricate yet funky basslines propelling him into the top ten rock & roll bass players of our time. “My role primarily is to lock in with the drummer,” he continued. “When you first see a cake, you see the frosting. You don’t see the cake underneath. The real butter and eggs and flour, the bones of the cake, are underneath it, and you don’t see that when you look at the cake – you see the frosting. So a lot of times people see the frosting, they see the lines and stuff like that played between me and guitar players but in fact, the cake, the most amount of that cake, is between me and the drums, and when the drums and bass are locked together, I can move around melodically underneath the guitar player while he’s soloing.”
I recently spoke with Sheehan about the new Winery Dogs album, mastering his tone, his dalliances with Jazz, the toughest song to record, and the lyrics that first caught his ear.
So you’re in Nashville now. What do you love about that place?
It’s Music City! It’s all about the music here and so many great players have moved here; a lot of people left LA to come here. We’ve been here for about five years now and it’s just been fantastic. The weather is great, people are really friendly and nice and it’s just been a beautiful experience all the way around.
What prompted your move?
I was in LA for thirty-two years, and well, it was getting dangerous. We had the house right next door to us have a home invasion and robbery. Right down the street from us the one who runs the 7-11 was shot and killed. The number of deaths within half a mile or mile of my house was getting out of control – robberies, deaths, attacks, assaults, things like that – and it just became too much so we kind of had to get out of there. When I went there in 1985, it was paradise but now it’s just sad to see cause I love LA and I still have a lot of dear friends there but we had to make a move.
How has creating songs within the Winery Dogs changed up to now and how has it stayed the same?
Well, it has mostly stayed the same. The only thing that has changed is ourselves. We’ve lived more life, been through more things, we had experiences and adventures, triumphs and tragedies. All that affects you as a person and then your art, I believe, eventually starts to reflect that one way or the other. You can go through a terrible tragedy and then write a beautiful, uplifting piece, or have a fabulous day and write the most morose, sad piece as well. It doesn’t always translate directly. Sometimes it does the opposite. So we’ve just all lived a lot of life ever since we first started and that comes out.
As a musician, I’m always working. I’m down here in my home studio right now. I get up and feed the cat and come down here for hours and work on my bass and come up with new things and write through all that. So as you grow as a person and a musician, every time you sit down with others to write, you have some new ideas, some new thoughts, new directions you can go. So the songwriting process has remained pretty much the same. However, we’ve all been through enough life to have the new songs reflect something fresh and new.
What about the recording process?
We started the first record in a small little room, crowded in there altogether, the three of us just throwing ideas back and forth. Hot Streak was very much like that as well. And we did it again this time, and the room was actually smaller this time (laughs). I’m sitting on an amp and Mike’s cymbal is brushing up against my cheek (laughs). So we were crammed in there but it’s good, cause you get to communicate in a small place. We’re not playing particularly loud or anything, we’re just playing so we could hear what the ideas are and we came up with everything on the record just like that, like it used to be back in the day.
We’d get together and write as a band and that’s very satisfying for all us, I think, cause everyone had equal say – the chorus is okay but maybe it should be in this key; oh okay, I get it, that works; okay, let’s do that – things like that happen all the time. Mike will lay down a drumbeat, I’ll play a bassline to it and Richie will look at my hands on the neck and see what key it’s in and he’ll jump in and bang, there you have it and we’ve got the underpinnings and foundation of a piece of music. Then we fine tune it, take an overview. Richie takes his time with it as far as lyrics and vocal melodies. Sometimes Mike and I have suggestions for him on that. But it’s a pretty civilized and enjoyable process.
What got the ball rolling to do number three?
We’ve always been in touch during the whole time. We were just kind of waiting for the moment when the stars align and schedules align. Initially, it was difficult to travel with the pandemic and all so we kind of had to hold off on that but as soon as we were able, Mike and I flew out to LA to Richie’s house. That’s when we started. We had done a small tour in 2019, just to kind of revisit performing live together again, cause that is what the band is mostly all about. Then the pandemic struck and we got set back a little bit longer. Then as soon as we could, we got on it.
Which song on III, once you heard Richie’s lyrics, made the hairs on your arms stand up?
“Mad World” was an instant favorite of mine. I loved that it was a commentary on a situation with no one being blamed other than madness itself. I think it was a wise move on his part, because I agree with that really. The world has kind of gone mad, sadly. I can’t think of anyone particularly to blame other than the state that we’re in, you know. It’s pretty sad. But it touched me because it really felt like it was reaching out to people to come together and to don’t forget that we’re all in this together.
Which of these songs has, in your opinion, the biggest Billy Sheehan imprint on it?
Well, again in “Mad World,” and there’s no reason I’m picking on that one (laughs) but there was just a really nice balance between the three of us musically. And at the end, I did this little bass solo, and when I first did it I wasn’t thinking of including it in the song. I just thought, there’s a little spot here and I went off (laughs). But then later on, “Oh no, you got to do the bass solo.” “Okay, if you insist.” (laughs) When I recorded it, I was just kind of flying. I wasn’t really thinking, I was just whipping it out without any thought. So when I had to go back and learn it, I had no idea what I did or how I did it (laughs). It actually took me quite a while to figure that out. Even though I played it, I couldn’t remember how I did it. So it was an interesting problem to have. I spent hours. I could tell what the notes were but I wasn’t sure which fingers were doing what on what string (laughs). Eventually, I got it and I feel confident with it now it’ll be a blast to play it live.
“Lorelei” rolls into this slow bluesy intro. What do you remember about recording that?
I do this ascending kind of bass chordal thing and then it drops off with a couple drum hits and then you fall into the pool of the song in a way, you know. You’re floating along with how the song goes, cause it’s a beautiful piece that, for me, it carries me along like I’m floating in it. So we had this crescendo, an ascension and then hits to mark the high point and then you slip into the vocals and the body of the song. Really a beautiful piece, I think, and Richie sang and played so elegantly. A really, really wonderful piece of music.
Whose decision was it to put “Xanadu” out first?
I don’t know. It might have been Mike. I know we rely on him for his setlist sequencing. He does a lot of things outside of being an amazing drummer. He’s a real asset so I think he suggested, “Let’s put a real barnburner out first.” Richie and I agreed and the response to it was amazing, and I’m not saying that as PR. We really were blown away by the reaction from people and how fast it got up to a hundred thousand, three hundred thousand views on YouTube. And the comments were just wonderful. I would scroll through the comments and people were very, very kind to us in their remarks. I’m happy when people are pleased with what we do. We never pander, we never do anything that’s designed to elicit a response. We do things as players but we are also very, very happy when other people enjoy it. Personally, to look out into a crowd at a live show and see a sea of hundreds and even thousands of smiling faces enjoying what you’re doing, that’s my pay, that’s really the thing that is most important to me. So when people respond positively to what we’ve done, I’m just over the moon about it.
All the fusion that’s in the music, what originally attracted you to Jazz?
Well, I was in high school with a couple of friends and one guy was a spectacular sax player. He went on to greatness. His name was Mike Migliore and I played in a band with him right out of high school and then we stayed in touch over the years and he ended up playing with all the huge big Jazz bands. So early on we listened to some of the Jazzier stuff. But I started out straight-up rock and rock was my thing and being in a rock band was my thing. But it was nice to not put the blinders on and not only listen to one thing. I’m very much into a lot of classical music as well and a lot of Jazz and a lot of World Music and a lot of things you wouldn’t imagine that I would like. And they really do influence me.
So I’m not a Jazz player. I can get through a Jazz song and I played in Niacin, which is a pretty Jazzy trio with two guys who were pretty well-versed in Jazz. But I’m still a rock player. So it’s an interesting challenge for me to try to sound convincing and try to sound like I know what I’m doing when I’m playing Jazz (laughs), when it’s really an area where I don’t have a lot of expertise. And I say that because I know some people who know so much about it. I am just dwarfed by their ocean of knowledge about Jazz. So I’ve always tried to challenge myself with something that was difficult to do or beyond my reach or beyond my understanding and try to get a grasp of it and move on. I’ve done that a lot with Jazz, somewhat successfully. We did a track with Chick Corea one time with Niacin and Dennis Chambers is probably one of the best Jazz Fusion drummers in the world and I played with him in Niacin and that was just a riot. What a wonderful guy he is.
So yeah, there has always been some attraction there but AC/DC Black In Black or Highway To Hell? Man, that’s pretty hard to beat as well. I look at that and Jazz as equal in the fact that they affect so many people and so many people love that. It’s completely different music but put on Bon Scott singing “Problem Child” or Coltrane doing “Giant Steps;” pretty amazing. They both have an incredible effect on people.
Jack Casady once told me he is forever chasing tone. In your mind, how close have you come to mastering the tone you seek and what was that on?
Well, for the whole new record of the Winery Dogs, Jay Ruston did a great job mixing. I can hear every note I play and that’s really great cause sometimes the bass gets buried or you kind of hear a low rumble or hum and there’s the bass in the background (laughs). People often confuse bass the instrument with bass the sound. So you say, can you hear the bass? Yeah, I can hear bass. But can you hear THE bass? No, I can’t hear what the bass is doing. But I hear bass frequencies, where Jay had managed to get the bass to really sound righteous and I can hear that. This record, and the new Talas record were mixed by a gentleman named Russ Mackay in Toronto. He used to come to see the band back in the day so he really nailed the bass tone on there for me as well and that was really cool.
But it doesn’t really change much through the years. It’s a similar sound and people have told me as soon as they hear a song they know if it’s me or not. I guess I believe them, I don’t know (laughs). Everybody has sort of a signature sound – their hands or DNA, your fingerprint – we all have that individuality there so I believe it expresses itself on an instrument as well. So yeah, the new Talas and the new Winery Dogs are really great examples of what I like to hear from my bass. But even on some of the older records. I always say my big three were Eat ‘Em & Smile, Mr. Big’s Lean Into It and the first Winery Dogs record. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve played in some great little bands (laughs).
What was the first song you ever heard where the lyrics really stood out to you?
Maybe “Mr, You’re A Better Man Than I.” That was long ago, back in the sixties. It was a great song and a lot of music at that time started to get into political messages. Frank Zappa’s first record, Freak Out, was quite an amazing record and it had a song called “Trouble Every Day,” which was about the LA riots, the Watts Riots, and Frank Zappa kind of blamed the news on amping people up. And to this day, I agree that that’s very much what they do. So way, way back then, we had a guy singing about that in very precise measures as well. It was obvious what he was talking about; he wasn’t masking it with any poetic sensibility. He was saying right out loud that that was what the problem was, the news amping it up for everybody and getting everybody freaked out and afraid and all that. So that was another one. But “Mr, You’re A Better Man Than I” was probably the first one and came before Zappa and it had an effect on me.
So you picked up on the messages during the Vietnam era talking about politics and social change coming into the music?
Yeah, I remember buying the first Country Joe & The Fish record, which had a song about the Vietnam War. And there was a guy, Ed Sanders from a band called The Fugs, believe it or not, very well-known in psychedelic underground circles, and he left and did a solo record and he did a song called “Are You A Vampire, Melvin Laird?” I think Melvin Laird was Secretary Of Defense at the time and it took me forever to track that song down again on the internet cause it was so obscure. But I finally have it (laughs). It’s amazing cause I remembered it like it was yesterday when I heard it some forty years later (laughs).
Of all the songs you have played on, which one was the toughest to get right in the studio because it was so complicated?
A woman from Japan, who is quite a great artist, Mari Hamada, asked me to play on her record at one point, and also Gregg Bissonette. She sent us the files to learn and one of them was really, really tough, really complicated. So I got to the studio when I was living in LA and Gregg Bissonette was there and he’s got a funny look on his face. I go, “What’s going on?” He goes, “Did you have a hard time learning this thing?” I go, “Man, did I ever! I had to spend hours on that.” And he said to me, “I had to hire a transcriptionist to listen and write it out ’cause I couldn’t figure it out.” He had notes on the wall of the drum room at A&M Studios. I remember playing that song in the studio and in one passage they go, “No, no, that’s not right.” “Okay, we’ll run it again.” “That’s not what it is.” “I’m playing the notes that are on there.” But she goes, “The rhythm is not right.” I’ve played with Steve Vai and Dennis Chambers and some pretty serious rhythm guys but eventually, I got it but it took a really long time.
So during the pandemic, she sent me two more songs to play. Sorry, let me back up a little bit. After I did that, she was having a thirty-fifth year anniversary at Budokan in Japan and wanted to fly me over to play a couple of songs. Very generous of her, she flew me over there, and put me up in a great hotel, I got up and played two songs with her and they took great care of me and it was a wonderful experience. She’s an incredible talent and a wonderful woman.
But after I did the thing with Gregg, I thought, man, I’m not sure, I’ve got to hear it first before I say yes. So sure enough, I’m sitting at home and I get an email from her: “I got two more songs for my new record.” She’s so kind, let me just say yes. So sure enough the first song comes in. Cool, that’s pretty, okay, no problem. The second one was the most difficult piece I ever recorded. I think we spent more than two days, almost three days, getting the bass track. The demo of the bass was done on a keyboard on Midi super ultra hyper-fast and super ultra-low frequency. So I had to do it on a low-tuned bass with a low b-string. But all the fast notes were like within the first three frets so it was way down low and it’s really hard to articulate fast notes down there (laughs). We finally got it.
What is the name of the song?
I don’t know the name. There was no name to it and the album isn’t out yet. She had put a delay on it because of the pandemic and all. But when it comes out, I’m going to post it and I’m going to ask her if it’s okay if I post on the left channel the original Midi track that I was supposed to do and on the right channel, bass, and have it be man vs machine (laughs). How close did I come to be able to do it? Cause on Midi, you can slow the whole thing down and play it micro-slow and then speed it up and it sounds the same like you played it that way. And to play it that fast and that low on bass, that was probably the toughest thing. Up to then, I think it was “Freak Show Excess,” the Steve Vai song off his Real Illusions record. That was pretty tough but this one was even more difficult cause it was written by a non-bass player. It’d be like a violinist writing a piece for a drummer (laughs). It was an interesting and difficult thing.
Do you know where your ancestral roots are?
County Cork in Ireland is where my grandfather came from when he was six years old, on a ship from Ireland to Ellis Island. His parents died on the way and he ended up in an orphanage at six years old. When he was sixteen, the nuns showed him how to paint with a paintbrush and he went off painting houses and that’s how our family started. I remember him when I was a little kid, playing with him at my Uncle George, my dad’s brother’s home in New Jersey. He lived, I believe, in Teaneck, New Jersey. I remember talking to him and having him come to visit. I still have a silver dollar that he gave me and I’ve hung on to that forever. I’ll have to pass it off to one of my other younger relatives at some point. But yeah, his name was Dan Sheehan, and my big brother was named after him.
On my mother’s side, my middle name is Roland cause her last name was Roland and her uncle, my great-uncle Ed, he was the commandant of the United States Coast Guard in the sixties, most of the sixties I believe. He was head of one of the Joints Chief Of Staff – Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard – so he was THE guy and an amazing man and an inspiration to everyone in the family as a result of his success and influence. The Coast Guard ships have orange on them now because of him. There was some kind of huge storm or something in Hawaii and the Navy and the Coast Guard were out there rescuing people and he got a little disappointed that they were saying they were all Navy ships when they were mostly Coast Guard ships (laughs). “So how can we set our ships apart? We’ll put a big orange stripe on them.” When you see Coast Guard with the orange, that was my Uncle Ed’s idea.
What is 2023 looking like for you?
Touring like crazy with everybody that I can tour with; mostly the Winery Dogs. We’re pretty much booked way up into the Fall, which I am supremely glad about. I love playing live with the Winery Dogs. It’s just an amazing thing. There are probably a couple of other things along the way too here as well but so far the only official days we have officially booked are the Winery Dogs so I am excited about that.
What makes you most proud of the Winery Dogs now?
Well, I’m not a pride type of person. It’s the worst of the seven deadly sins (laughs). But I am just so pleased that I have this relationship with Mike and Richie in this band, musical and personal. It’s such a wonderful thing to go out and enjoy each other, enjoy ourselves, and be on a bus with no arguments or problems or troubles. We respect each other, get onstage and respect each other. It’s a wonderful thing.
Portrait by Travis Shinn
